“Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness.”

All religions must be tolerated for every man must get to heaven in his own way.

Whoever is going to listen to the philosophers needs a considerable practice in listening.

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths.

Don’t demand or expect that events happen as you would wish them do. Accept events as they actually happen. That way, peace is possible.

Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will.

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.

He who is not happy with little will never be happy with much.

Don’t live by your own rules, but in harmony with nature.

Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.

When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.

No matter where you find yourself, comport yourself as if you were a distinguished person.

It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous, even death is terrible only if we fear it.

Other people’s views and troubles can be contagious. Don’t sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

The average call me obsessed, the successful call me for advice.

Average is a failing plan! Average doesn’t work in any area of life. Anything that you give only average amounts of attention to will start to subside and will eventually cease to exist.

First of all, I’m no better than the next person.

Critics only speak up when they see someone shining. Average work doesn’t threaten them.

Until our mission becomes our obsession, we’ll be chained to the realm of average.

The average are addicted to leisure. The exceptional are obsessed with learning.

Ninety-nine percent of people believe they can’t do great things, so they aim for mediocrity.

In this generation, along with the dominating traits, the recessive ones also reappear, their individuality fully revealed, and they do so in the decisively expressed average proportion of 3:1, so that among each four plants of this generation three receive the dominating and one the recessive characteristic.